he scores like that. It’s been fun to see.”Maurice doesn’t know what he sees as Laine’s ceiling, but doesn’t think it matters. As Laine’s game rounds out, he’ll face different kinds of defensive challenges, and then it’ll be up to him to prove he can sustain scoring the way Ovechkin has over the past

LAS VEGAS (AP) The Vegas Golden Knights chose to celebrate a monumental moment for the franchise by thinking back to how its inaugural season began – hoping the new hockey team could bring smiles to a city reeling from tragedy.Shortly after Vegas became the first expansion team to clinch a playoff berth with a 4-1 win over the Colorado Avalanche on Monday night Carolina Hurricanes T-Shirts Womens , the mantra in the locker room was the same as the one adopted shortly before the team’s home opener:”Vegas Strong.”Team owner Bill Foley, veteran goalie Marc-Andre Fleury and leading scorer William Karlsson were among those who thought back Monday to the Oct. 1 mass shooting that killed 58 and injured hundreds more on the Las Vegas Strip.”It was a disaster that night, it was a terrible massacre, we changed our initial opening night ceremonies, I thought we really connected with the town – I’m so proud of the whole team,” Foley said. ”From then on, it was pretty unbelievable. We got off to that fast start. We’ve survived a lot of challenges this year, besides being an expansion team who nobody picked to do anything.”No expansion team had ever made the playoffs since the league expanded for the 1967-68 season.”It doesn’t bring anybody back or we don’t heal anybody,” Fleury said. ”But I hope that we’ve changed people’s mind a bit and get them to come here and have a good time at T-Mobile (Arena) and be proud of their hometown team.”Alex Tuch, Jonathan Marchessault, Shea Theodore and Karlsson each scored, while Fleury improved to 28-11-4 after stopping 28 shots.It was also the 200th career victory for coach Gerard Gallant.”I’m really happy about making the playoffs, the 200th win doesn’t mean a whole lot,” Gallant said. ”We always go back to our first home game. It wasn’t about our team winning Christian Folin Jersey Womens , it wasn’t about nothing – it was about the first responders and the tragedy that happened the week before that.”It was a tough way to start our season, but I think the guys and everybody supported it well. They all came out and played an unbelievable game that first night and I just think it carried over.”The Golden Knights host San Jose on Saturday and are six points in front of the Sharks in the Pacific Division. San Jose beat Chicago in overtime earlier Monday.Erik Johnson scored for the Avalanche and Semyon Varlamov made 26 saves.Colorado is 11-7-3 against the Pacific Division and dropped to 7-3-3 in March. The Avalanche are still riding a 9-3-3 streak but had a three-game road winning streak snapped.The Avalanche are fourth in the Central Division but dropped to the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference, just behind Los Angeles, which beat Calgary.”I’m not going to talk about a first-round (playoff) matchup, we gotta get there first,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. ”I would have liked to add another point or two tonight, but we weren’t able to get it done.”Tuch was in the right spot on Vegas’ first power play to punch home a loose puck and give the Golden Knights a 1-0 lead. Colorado tied it when Johnson was there to fire in a rebound.Vegas went back up 2-1 when Marchessault beat Varlamov with a slick wrist shot. Vegas has scored with a man advantage in 20 of its last 31 games. Since Jan. 21, the Golden Knights lead the league with a power-play percentage of 30.4.The Golden Knights wasted no time in extending their lead in the third period, when Erik Haula fed a streaking Theodore, who put one past Varlamov at the 1:31 mark.Karlsson closed out the scoring with an empty-net goal, his 40th of the season.”It feels pretty incredible, it’s good to clinch it at home ice,” Karlsson said. ”It’s been a fun ride, obviously winning helps it. We had a great start and that set us off for the rest of the year. I think the whole city came together David Perron Jersey Womens , the fans have been great, and they’ve helped us a lot. They fired us up and it was momentum all the way.”NOTES: The Avalanche had three players skate in milestone games, as Landeskog played in his 500th game, Tyson Barrie played in his 400th, and Gabriel Bourque notched his 300th. … Vegas’ James Neal is now three games shy of his 700th. … Marchessault became the 10th player in NHL history to record 70 points while playing for a team in its inaugural season. … The 18,326 in attendance was the third-largest crowd of the season.UP NEXTColorado: Returns home to host Philadelphia on Wednesday night.Vegas: Hosts Arizona on Wednesday night.— The Winnipeg Jets can thank their own St. Patrik for their success this season and potentially for years to come.Patrik Laine was the consolation prize in the 2016 NHL draft behind generational talent Auston Matthews. But he has been a cause for celebration in Winnipeg as a franchise-changing superstar at age 19.Mathieu Perreault saw the power Alex Ovechkin had to alter the direction of the Washington Capitals and turn them into a perennial playoff team and Stanley Cup contender. When Laine arrived from Finland, the winger started doing the same things in Winnipeg.”The organization wasn’t having a whole lot of success, and then they get Ovi as a young kid and he starts scoring goals, and all of a sudden the team starts winning,” Perreault said.”They became a very dominant team for many years. So you kind of sense that here, where the team’s been struggling for many years, not making the playoffs. And then you get this young kid coming in and scoring goals for your team and helps your team win games. I think coming up in Winnipeg we’ll have a dominant team for many years.”That’s because Laine is already a dominant player. With 16 goals and eight assists in his past 14 games, Laine has the longest point streak by a teenager and already passed Wayne Gretzky for the most goals by a player before turning 20.The best part for the Jets? Laine is just getting started.”It’s really impressive when you factor in he’s still learning the game,” coach Paul Maurice said. ”His scoring has taken off of late Jimmy Hayes Jersey Womens , but so has his game, his all-around game. … He’s an impressive young man at 19. At any age, those numbers would be elite. But at 19, that’s pretty exciting because there’s lot of room as he physically matures, for his game to change and become a power forward and a big, strong man who can score off the rush. Take pucks to the net. There are lots of places Patty is going to improve over the years.”Laine is drawing comparisons to Ovechkin for his shot, which teammates and opposing goaltenders say is even more deceptive than the Russian 600-goal scorer ‘s blast. Capitals goaltender Philipp Grubauer, who has taken Ovechkin shots in practice for years, said Laine’s long stick changes the angle of where the puck is going.”He shoots it, he pulls it in a little bit weird – long stick – and makes it really hard for us to read,” Grubauer said.As much as Laine looked up to Ovechkin as a kid, the respect is now mutual. When Ovechkin scored twice Monday to reach 600 and get to 42 this season, Laine answered with his 41st and showed he has what it takes to go goal-for-goal with hockey’s best.”He’s a great talent and still young and still can produce lots of dangerous (chances),” Ovechkin said.Laine said it has always been a goal to win the Maurice ”Rocket” Richard Trophy as the league’s top goal scorer Chris Bigras Jersey Womens , and he’s in the race to do that. Entering Saturday, he’s one behind Ovechkin and one ahead of Pittsburgh Penguins center Evgeni Malkin.”It’s always been one of my dreams to win it,” Laine said. ”It’s good motivation for me.”Laine is also motivated by trying to help set the Jets up for the playoffs and make a long run this spring. Winnipeg has been banged up and secondary scoring has been hot and cold, but Laine’s scoring pace has his teammates believing anything is possible.”You give him one opportunity and it’s in the back of the net,” Perreault said. ”Right now every shot it seems goes in. It helps us win games when he scores like that. It’s been fun to see.”Maurice doesn’t know what he sees as Laine’s ceiling, but doesn’t think it matters. As Laine’s game rounds out, he’ll face different kinds of defensive challenges, and then it’ll be up to him to prove he can sustain scoring the way Ovechkin has over the past decade-plus.”The overall game Patty will play will become far more important than whether it’s 40, 50 or whatever that number (of goals) ends up being,” Maurice said.”At some point, Patty is going to play 20 minutes a night. Maybe not at 19, but when that happens, he’ll be playing against the `A’ group. It’s not as easy to keep scoring like Ovechkin has when you move up the lineup and you play more minutes and you play against the other teams’ best.”—